Mirror - Vol. 20, No. 20 - April 25, 1996

              The
FairfieldMIRR®R Volume 20, Number 20 Thursday, April 25, 1996 The Image of Fairfield
Three to receive honorary degrees
Christine Hamel
Managing Editor
Jazz musician Milt Hinton and
education advocate Dorothy Bannow
Larson will both receive honorary
doctorates in law at commencement on
May 19. The Rev. Gregory Hunt S.J.,
will receive a Honorary Doctorate in
Letters. The commencement speaker
was not announced, as of press time.
Hinton, regarded as Dean of
Jazz bass players, is called "The Judge."
He is featured on numerous
recordings accompanying Chuck Berry,
Benny Carter, Benny Goodman, Lionel
Hampton, Coleman Hawkins, Billie
Holiday, Ethel Waters, and Teddy
Wilson; some of the sessions have
become jazz classics.
Hinton is an active jazz
educator. He served as the Bass Chairman
for the National Associaton of Jazz
Educators, and a panel member for the
National Endowment for the Arts. He
taught weekly jazz workshops at Hunter
and Baruch colleges in Manhattan.
Aside from his talent in jazz, Hinton
is a photographer His photos have been on
exhibit at Parsons School of Design, the
Aetna Foundation, Rhode Island School of
Design, and the Detroit Historical Museum.
Larson, a graduate of Tufts
University, has been Chairperson of the
University President's Advisory Council,
Lifetime Member of the President's Circle,
and a former trustee. Recipient of the
Medal of Merit in 1969, she received an
Honorary Alumna in 1979.Currently, she
sits on the Samuel Staples Free School
Fund.
Hunt entered the Society of Jesus
in 1954, received his A.B. and M.A. degrees
from Fordham University, his Licentiates in
Philosophy and Sacred Theology from
Woodstock College, and his masters degree
in Sacred Theology from Yale University.
Hunt is best known for his
numerous articles on contemporary
American fiction. In 1981, Hunt's book
The Rev. Gregory Hunt, S.J., will receive
a Honorary doctorate in Letters.
Milt Hinton will be receiving a Honorary
Doctorate in Laws.
"John Updike and the Three Great
Secret Things: Sex, Religion, and Art"
was honored as "book of the year" by
the Conference on Christianity and
Literature. His critical study "John
Cheever: The Hobgobblin in Company of
Love," was cited as the finest book on
Cheever's fiction.
Sommer relates joy and pain of Holocaust
JoAnn Gometz
News Editor
"My brother Samuel jumped
from the train into the river. The Germans
felt that it was important that they pull the
train back three miles and shoot him.
People always said he was handsome, like
Michelangelo's 'David .V' When I saw that
statue, I cried," Jay Sommer said in his
address to about 200 people at the Quick
Center Tuesday night.
Sommer is a high school teacher,
and a survivor of the Holocaust. In his
speech, which highlighted some of the
memoirs in his newly released book,
"Journey to the Golden Door: A Survivor's
Tale," he related much of the story of his
life, from his boyhood in Czechoslovakia
to his current residence in New Rochelle,
NY.
Dr. Ellen Umansky, professor of
religious studies and head of the Center
for Judaic Studies at Fairfield University,
introduced Sommer, who was her Russian
teacher for two years in high school. She
described him as, "full of enthusiasm and
energy, with an innovative teaching style,
and always interested in each of his
students."
Umansky said that Sommer,
"traveled a long journey, full of sadness,
pain, and great joy." She then expressed
her gratitude to Sommer for appearing at
Fairfield, and turned the podium over to
him.
A slight, sure-spoken man in his
late sixties, Sommercharmed the audience
immediately, relating to both the older
members and the numerous students that
attended. He spoke in English forthe most
part, but frequently added a phrase of
Spanish, Italian, French, or Yiddish, eliciting
chuckles from the audience members who
understood those languages.
Sommer explained that he wrote
the book to find "his people" among the six
million Jews that are usually quoted as having
perished in the Holocaust. He also said that
he wanted to find a rationale for the Holocaust
in a supposedly civilized world. He declared
that the world is not yet civilized, because
civilized people see with their souls; the
Nazis did not.
Sommer was poor as a child, in
everything but love, which his mother
showered on the children with abandon. His
first experience with Anti-Semitism was on
the first day of school, when two boys beat
him and called him a "Christ-killer." He did
not know who Christ was. A young girl
named Anya stood up for him, and he has
always remembered her kindness.
From the age of ten, Sommer
worked as a laborer and apprentice, regretting
bitterly that he could not attend school. At
the end of his apprenticeship, Sommer was
prepared to help his family economically,
but his ailing mother passed away at the age
of 43, on the eve of the Holocaust.
At age 17, Sommer found himself
in a labor and concentration camp near
Budapest, Hungary, producing ammunition
for the Germans. The inmates survived
beatings from their guards, bombing raids
by the British during the night and the
Americans during the day, and endured the
loss of friends from all three.
After seven months, Sommer and a
friend escaped with stolen identification
badges. He went to Budapest, where
someone that he thought was a friend reported
his presence to the S.S. He narrowly escaped,
and eventually found work on a farm, through
the help of several kind people who did
not let on that they were aware of his
disguise until after the liberation of the
area by the Russians.
At that point, Sommer said
that, "They made me a volunteer in the
Russian army. They did that by putting
a gun to your head and asking if you'd
like to be a volunteer in the Russian
army. 'Oh, yes. It's just what I'd
dreamed of,' you would say."
Eventually, he obtained,
"permanent furlough," from the army,
and made his way to Budapest, where
he was reunited with his only surviving
brother, Harry, whose wedding he
attended the next day. He then spent
several years in refugee camps in Italy.
Sommer expressed his
immense gratitude for the Italian
people, who were extremely generous
in their acceptance of the refugees. To
thank them, he learned to speak Italian
fluently.
A stranger in America, Max
Neumann, agreed to sponsor Sommer's
immigration, for which both Sommer
and his brother, already in America,
were greatly appreciative. Neumann
.met Sommer at the dock, took him
shopping, and helped him to enroll in
public school, where he learned English
in six months.
Within nine years, Sommer
had a high school equivalency and a
bachelor's degree in art, and had been
named Best Student at Brooklyn
College. He decided that the best way
to repay Neumann, all of his saviors in
Europe, and all of his teachers in
America, was to begin teaching,
himself.
The children gave him his
childhood back, and he loves them for it,
a fact that he did not hesitate to share
several times throughout the evening. As
he taught them, he learned more than the
information that he needed to complete
his masters' degrees in Russian and
Spanish.
Sommer completed all the work
needed for a Ph.D. from New York
University, but his paper, on Anti-
Semitism in Russian literature was
rejected, because the head ofthe committee
was, according to Sommer, "a virulent
Anti-Semite, himself."
Named the National Teacher of
the Year in 1981, Sommer was received at
the White House, which he called a symbol
of the freedom in America, a symbol
second only to the Statue ofLiberty, which
he felt offered him a special welcome on
his arrival to the United States in 1948.
Sommer said that two mitigating
forces keep him free of nightmares and
pessimism. They are his three
grandchildren, Matthias, Danielle, and
Benjamin, and the kind-hearted human
beings that saved his life so many times
during the Holocaust. He said that people
like them offer great hope for the future,
and for the children.
Sommer answered questions
about a variety of issues after his speech,
which lasted less than an hour.
His humor and remembrances
genuinely touched the audience, as did
the way in which he delighted in the
presence of students. He was clearly
certain that the time had come to introduce
the world to the faces of the Holocaust,
not just the numbers.
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